In her brief life, Rani Rivera (1981-2016) experienced moments of darkness and light.
Rivera worked among the marginalized in two of the neediest neighbourhoods in Toronto: first, as a community worker at St. Jamestown where she organized after-school activities for children and youth, and later as an outreach worker at the Community Place Hub in the Weston and Mount Denis area.
While enrolled in the English Program of the University of Toronto on a bridging scholarship, Rivera took up poetry courses under poets David Donnell and Lynn Crosbie. She left behind, according to her mentor Lynn Crosbie, “a stunning legacy, one that will be returned to, again and again, by anyone who knows, to quote Theodore Roethke, ‘the purity of pure despair.’”
Learn more about Rani’s poetry collection, All Violet, published by Caitlin Press.
REVIEWS:
The Maynard: Re-View #5: All Violet
IN MEMORY: